Censeur, Duquesne, Jupiter, and Révolution, with the frigat frigates Embuscade, Félicité, and Friponne, sailed from the bay of Cadiz, under the protection of a Spanish fleet of 20 ships of the line and 14 frigates and corvettes, commanded by Admiral Don Juan de Langara ; a service which M. Richery might have performed alone, as Rear-admiral Mann, with his seven sail of the line, had quitted the bay since the 29th of the preceding month. Almost as soon as the Spanish fleet had got out to sea, Admiral Langara detached Rear-admiral Solano, with 10 sail of the line and six frigates, to escort M. Richery to a spot distant 100 leagues to the westward. Having complied with his orders, the Spanish rear-admiral put about on his return, and the French rear-admiral, in pursuance of the instructions he had received, continued his route towards the coast of North America.

This treaty between France and Spain was ratified at Paris on the 12th of September ; and in three days afterwards, which was immediately on the receipt of the intelligence, England laid an embargo on all Spanish ships at anchor in her ports. Next followed, bearing date the 5th of October, a declaration of war by Spain against England. In this declaration, as is customary, the most plausible story is told to justify the resort to arms ; but the real origin of the war was to be found in the mean subserviency of Spain to France, which country was now straining every nerve to overwhelm a power that would neither be corrupted by intrigue nor intimidated by threats.

About a week before the Spanish manifesto issued from Madrid, a fleet of 19 sail of the line and 10 frigates and corvettes, under the command of Admiral Don Juan de Langara, put to sea from Cadiz, bound through the Straits. On the 1st of October, at sunset, Cape de Gata bearing west by north distant three or four leagues, the squadron of Rear-admiral Mann, then lying nearly becalmed on its way from San-Fiorenzo bay to England with three transports and a brig under convoy, discovered the Spanish fleet in the south-east quarter. At 11 p.m., on a breeze springing up from the eastward, the Spaniards bore up in chase, and on the morning of the 3d captured the merchant brig and one of the transports ; but the squadron and remaining transports succeeded, the same evening, in reaching the anchorage in Rosia bay near the mole of Gibraltar.

Foiled in his principal object, Admiral Langara stood back to the eastward, and calling off Carthagena, was joined by seven line-of-battle ships out of that port ; which made his whole force 26 sail of the line besides frigates. With this formidable fleet, the Spanish admiral cruised as far up the Mediterranean as Cape Corse : in the neighbourhood of which he was seen on the 15th by some of the cruisers of Sir John Jervis, then, with his fleet numbering only 14 sail of the line (the Ca-Ira having been burnt by accident, the Princess-Royal and Agamemnon

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